Michael Frost – AC Conference, July 2015 Pentecostal
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Michael Frost – AC Conference, July 2015 Pentecostal Leadership and Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand: Exploring the Impact of a Bicultural Deficit in Pentecostal Christianity Introduction New Zealand pentecostal engagement with Māori has a complicated history. At times pentecostal spirituality seems to have held a distinct appeal to Māori and achieved significant success, yet in other ways the relationship has been characterised by colonial attitudes and by cultural dislocation for numbers of Māori within pentecostal churches. This focus of this paper is to explore the response of pentecostalism to New Zealand biculturalism, as well as the resultant impact on pentecostal leadership among Māori. In order to achieve this we will briefly summarise the concept of biculturalism as it uniquely takes shape within the New Zealand context. We will then explore pentecostal engagement with Māori and discuss how pentecostals have, or have not, responded to the context of a bicultural New Zealand society. Following this we will examine the impact of this response on pentecostal Māori, and Māori pentecostal leadership in particular. Biculturalism In order to discuss biculturalism as it relates to pentecostalism and Māori, it is necessary to briefly describe the notion of biculturalism as it functions within contemporary New Zealand society. New Zealand biculturalism is grounded in the Treaty of Waitangi; an agreement signed between Māori and the Crown in 1840. While the original intent and ongoing meaning of the Treaty continues to be debated, it has nevertheless contributed towards the idea of a nation founded on a partnership between two peoples, Māori and Pākehā. Although the ideals of the Treaty were subsequently overshadowed by the impact of colonisation and the illegal activities of the Crown in securing land and power, in recent decades the importance of the Treaty and bicultural partnership has returned to the forefront of New Zealand’s social and political identity.1 While New Zealand can be conceived of as a multicultural nation in terms of its ethnic composition, it is considered bicultural with regards to social policy. New Zealand biculturalism itself can be conceived of on at least two different levels. In what Andrew Sharp calls ‘bicultural reformism’, the focus is on ensuring Māori representation and participation in various aspects of the social and political features of New Zealand life.2 The practical manifestations of bicultural reformism can be observed in a number of examples: preservation of a small number of Māori seats in the national parliament, consultation with Māori at the level of local governance, education and health and so on. ‘Bicultural distributivism’, however, relates to self-determination rather than simply to representation and consultation (and is generally less well accepted than bicultural reformism, especially among Pākehā).3 Bicultural distributivism arose in opposition to the suggestion of multicultural distributivism, which had argued for a distribution of resources to different groups based on their proportion of the total population. Instead, bicultural distributivism argues that as one of two partners in the Treaty agreement, Māori should have equal representation and the right to self- determination, however that might be understood.4 1 See Andrew Sharp, Justice and the Māori: the Philosophy and Practice of Māori Claims in New Zealand Since the 1970’s, 2nd edition ed. (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1999). 2 This is discussed specifically in relation to New Zealand pentecostalism in Philip D Carew, “Māori, Biculturalism and the Assemblies of God in New Zealand, 1970 - 2008” (Victoria University of Wellington, 2009), 113. 3 Ibid. 4 Dominic O’Sullivan, Faith, Politics and Reconciliation: Catholicism and the Politics of Indigeneity (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2005), 211-212. 2 New Zealand churches, for their part, have responded in a range of different ways to the issue of biculturalism. Some churches, for example the Anglican Church, see the church as having played a pivotal role in the signing of the Treaty and thus being implied in the agreement, seeing it, at least partly, in spiritual terms as well as political. In light of this the Anglican Church attempts to express the bicultural implications of the Treaty in and through partnership models in their ecclesial structures.5 It is important to note that this approach is not primarily about strategies for mission to Māori, but rather a stance on what they believe to be the responsibilities of the church to honour the Treaty agreement. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, tends to see biculturalism as one of a number of possible political approaches through which the higher theological ideals of justice and reconciliation may, or may not be, achieved.6 Thus, a Catholic response to Māori is firstly grounded in a theological vision of justice and reconciliation, which is a foundation from which they might support or critique bicultural frameworks, rather than holding an inherent attachment to biculturalism in and of itself. In this way, the Catholic Church sees the Treaty agreement as a political issue for the State, rather than a prescriptive paradigm for the church. Thus for the Catholic Church, biculturalism is seen as the social and political context within which the church is located. The church can then support the place of the Treaty in New Zealand society, which it does, while simultaneously seeking to avoid grafting a particular political ideology into its ecclesiology. In contrast to both of these responses, New Zealand pentecostalism, with the exception of some expressions of the Apostolic Church, has not adopted biculturalism of any kind, nor reflected 5 Carew, “Māori, Biculturalism and the Assemblies of God,” 47-49. 6 See O’Sullivan, Faith, Politics and Reconciliation. 3 theologically and critically on a response to the bicultural context within which it is located. It is the impact of this deficit that we will explore presently and in order to do so we will make a few preliminary observations regarding pentecostal engagement with Māori. Pentecostalism, Māori and Biculturalism New Zealand Pentecostalism has had a mixed relationship with Māori. Despite the hopes for widespread revival that emerged out of the Smith Wigglesworth campaigns of the early 1920s, the early years of the movement were largely focused on a spiritual renewal for existing churches and were mostly limited to small numbers of, primarily urban, European members.7 Mission to the predominantly rural Māori was not a priority for the pentecostal movement, a movement that would remain small and largely sectarian for the three decades following the Wigglesworth campaigns.8 Additionally, New Zealand pentecostalism, significantly influenced by British (and North American) leaders, carried threads of colonial attitudes towards some Māori cultural and spiritual practices.9 Our concern in this paper, however, is not with pentecostal engagement with Māori per se, but rather to explore how pentecostal church and denominational approaches to leadership have responded to the notion of biculturalism and to discuss the resultant impact on Māori pentecostals and Māori pentecostal leadership in particular. At this point we should also note that in exploring leadership in this context we are primarily focusing on positional leadership within the Classical Pentecostal denominations. 7 Philip D Carew and Geoff Troughton, “Māori Participation in the Assemblies of God,” in Mana Māori and Christianity, ed. Hugh Morrison and others, (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2012), 94. 8 For a discussion on the small and sectarian nature of early New Zealand pentecostalism, see Brett Knowles, Transforming Pentecostalism: the Changing Face of New Zealand Pentecostalism, 1920-2010 (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2014)., especially 41-85. 9 Carew, “Māori, Biculturalism and the Assemblies of God,” 21. 4 Differing pentecostal approaches to Māori and Māori leadership can be observed by comparing early pentecostal revivals among Māori led by evangelists from the Apostolic Church and the Assemblies of God (A/G) in New Zealand. In Waiomio, a small valley in the northern region of New Zealand, A/G pastors Ray Bloomfield and Frank Houston were invited to preach among a Māori community in the late 1950s, three members of whom had been praying for a revival.10 While the Māori community did not enthusiastically receive Bloomfield and Houston at first, the impact of an elderly Māori person claiming healing after Bloomfield’s prayer would drastically change Māori attitudes towards them. In the following weeks a pentecostal revival broke out in Waiomio, in a region referred to at that time as ‘Drunkards Valley’, that had a profound affect on most Māori in the valley. Unfortunately for the A/G however, the long-term impact of the Waiomio revival among Māori appears to be limited. Carew and Troughton argue that this is due to the neglect of Bloomfield and Houston to train and empower potential Māori leaders from within the revival movement, along with a lack of any intentional or significant connections with local marae leaders and kaumatua.11 It seems that the focus on Māori in Waiomio was more incidental to the larger goals of evangelism and revival sought by Bloomfield and Houston, rather than being a concerted effort to engage, empower and release Māori expressions of pentecostalism. While certain aspects of their pentecostal approach clearly appeared to resonate with Māori in the valley, the lack of intentionality with regards to ongoing Māori leadership or the navigating of Māori culture and spirituality with newfound Christian faith would prove problematic in the longer term. 10 Ibid., 64. 11 Carew and Troughton, “Māori Participation in the Assemblies of God,” 94-95. 5 This type of approach among the A/G can also be seen in the attitudes towards biculturalism after the Māori renaissance of the 1970s. The re-emergence of the Treaty of Waitangi into the national consciousness, along with the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal and the application of a bicultural framework into social and political policy, has largely been seen as a political issue by the A/G.